Abstract

NUNES, Ivanil. Expansion and Crisis of the Brazilian Railroads in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Am. Lat. Hist. Econ [online]. 2016, vol.23, n.3, pp.204-235. ISSN 2007-3496.  https://doi.org/10.18232/alhe.v23i3.723.

From the 1940s in the Brazil, started a new cycle of rail business model, based on the nationalization of the system. The objective of this paper is to analyze the process of expansion of lines that increased the supply of services offered and the expansion of railway category, and the relationship of these factors with the nationalization of the railways. Would it be correct to say that these railways were becoming ineffective over the first two decades of the twentieth century, particularly after World War I? We conclude in this paper that these difficulties faced by Brazilian railways, which led them to the nationalization, is not a phenomenon that started to occur from the 1940s, exclusively. Really, much of the ills that hit the Brazilian railroads and led them to the nationalization already had been manifested from the early years of the twentieth century.

Keywords : railways; Brazilian railways; rail business model; nationalization.